


I Feel Strong (But Am I Breaking Down)

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Cap2 spoilers, Conspiracy, Friendship, Gen, Humour, Hydra, Memory Loss, Regaining memory, Steve has sass, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, Winter Soldier has sass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-20 03:14:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 17,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1494499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier escapes his handlers and goes on the run. After the Chitauri invasion he sees Captain America on TV, and knows that if anyone can help him, it's this man. Meanwhile, the last thing Steve expects after the battle of New York is to be confronted with a living, breathing ghost. </p><p>[Spoilers for Captain America: The Winter Soldier]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The POV is given in the chapter title._

There’s a TV playing in the corner of the café. It’s been a few days since the attack on New York, long enough that the long, expensive clean-up has started, but every major TV network is still showing footage of the devastated city.

The focus of the news coverage suddenly changes: there’s footage from the invasion of a man wearing red, white and blue, and the newscaster starts talking about Captain America.

One of the men in the café looks up at that, his gaze moving to the TV screen. He’s young looking, late twenties at the most if his appearance is any indication, and dressed in a hoodie and jeans, chin-length hair and a baseball cap obscuring his face. With his backpack on the seat beside him he looks like a student or backpacker. No one pays him much attention as he sits and drinks coffee.

Appearances are deceiving, of course: he’s a lot older than he looks, and he’s possibly the most dangerous man in New York right now. He’s also been on the run these last four months, and so far everyone sent after him hasn’t made it back.

The news channel shows blurry phone footage of Captain America standing with his cowl off, a handsome young man with blond hair and a bone-weary expression. The man in the café’s eyes sharpen at the sight.

“ _Is this the real Captain America?_ ” asks the newscaster, and the phone-camera footage is suddenly displayed side-by-side with old black and white footage of a man wearing a similar uniform. Their faces are exactly the same, despite the seventy-odd year age gap between the two videos.

The man in the hoodie stares for a long moment at what’s on the TV screen. Then he finishes his cup of coffee, grabs his backpack, and disappears into the crowds outside the café.

That’s the nice thing about New York. No one pays you too much attention.

* * *

Steve isn’t quite sure how he ended up moving into Stark Tower. Admittedly, he didn’t really have anywhere else to go after his SHIELD apartment was destroyed during the Chitauri invasion, but he could have found somewhere. Instead, he found himself somehow being talked into moving into Stark Tower.

Steve has to admit that it’s better than living on his own. He’s never lived alone in his life, either sharing an apartment with Bucky or living among the army, and he gets lonesome when he’s alone too long. Being in Stark Tower means that any time the silence starts to grate on him, he can just wander out and find out what Bruce or Tony are up to.

Steve still has no idea what to make of Tony, although he’s recognized that his initial assessment of the man was unfair: he was feeling sore at the world and took it out on the most tempting target, which happened to be Tony. But he’s seen Tony almost give his life, willingly offer it up in the service of a greater cause, and knows that the flash billionaire is only one part of Tony’s character. He feels bad about some of the things he said on the helicarrier, but Tony didn’t let him apologise. Instead he just cut Steve off, saying, “Water under the bridge, Cap. No harm no foul, right?” His voice was blasé, but his eyes were unexpectedly kind. It left Steve feeling small and ashamed of himself to have so badly misjudged Tony at the beginning. Not that this helped him understand the man any better: like the rest of the 21st century, Tony is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by an impenetrable aura of the unfamiliar.

Bruce is a little easier to comprehend: he doesn’t have Tony’s bewildering layers of personality. He isn’t precisely easy to talk to, but he isn’t difficult, either. He talks in language Steve understands, and doesn’t mind explaining the things that go over Steve’s head. He’s surprisingly restful, for a man with his condition: Steve wishes he could be that calm. Most of the time he feels like a jittery bundle of loss and bottled-up rage with no clear target. He goes through a lot of punching bags in the gym downstairs. Tony doesn’t seem to mind: all he did was tell his talking machine to make sure Steve doesn’t run out, which was kind of him. But then, Steve is beginning to recognize, Tony _is_ kind, in his own way. It’s just hard to spot at first, underneath the obnoxious veneer. Steve is determined to eventually work out how to decode Tony’s mystifying behaviour: he suspects that if he can, he’ll end up with a good friend he can count on. It would be nice to have a friend, in this new time.

At the moment Steve spends his days helping with the clean-up effort. It feels good to be able to go out and help people. It makes him feel useful for once, relevant, instead of some kind of relic or fossil left over from an earlier time. It makes him feel like maybe, eventually he’ll find his feet in this century and learn how to live his life again. The people he talks to are all just people like any other, and though they’re different in some ways from the people he knew in his time, underneath they’re still just the same. It’s hard work, even for him: but at the end of the day he comes back to Stark Tower cheerful and smiling.

It’s been another long day, and Steve gets back to the Tower sweaty but relaxed, his muscles feeling like they’ve had a proper workout without aching. He’s worked up a big appetite, and he’s looking forward to dinner. Some nights Tony and Miss Potts are out, or have dinner on their own, but other nights Steve eats dinner with Tony and Miss Potts and Bruce, and they all talk as they eat. It’s nice, and though Steve doesn’t say much, still getting used to dealing with people again after the last couple of months of isolation, he enjoys listening to the others. After dinner he might watch one of the movies JARVIS picks out for him, or maybe listen to some of the music he’s used to, something snappy that doesn’t make his heart ache with memory.

There’s a guy loitering outside Stark Tower when Steve gets there. Steve assesses him automatically, instinctively looking for threats at all times after all those years in a war zone, but he doesn’t seem very threatening: he’s just a guy in a hooded sweatshirt and jeans, a back-pack slung over his shoulder. Then he glances Steve’s way and moves, and Steve reassesses, because anyone who moves in that smooth, silent way is dangerous.

“Captain,” the guy says, and his voice is oddly familiar.

“How do you know–” Steve begins, stepping back into a wary stance.

“Your face has been all over the news networks,” the man explains. His voice is calm and inflectionless, almost blank. “And Stark Tower seemed a pretty obvious place for you to go, under the circumstances.”

“What do you want?” Steve demands, wondering if this guy is some kind of SHIELD operative, or something else. He tries to get a good look at the guy’s face, but it’s obscured behind a curtain of hair and the baseball cap pulled down low. Steve wonders in frustration if that’s deliberate.

The man hesitates, and Steve is ready to clock him one if he tries something stupid, but suddenly the man’s body language is uncertain, and it’s enough to make Steve curious.

“I need your help,” the guy says, and looks up, and for the first time Steve gets a good look at the man he’s been talking to.

All of the breath rushes out of Steve’s body in a whoosh, and he feels himself pale.

“ _Bucky?_ ” he chokes out disbelievingly.  
 


	2. Winter Soldier

The Winter Soldier thought that he had prepared himself for any of the potential outcomes of his conversation with the Captain. What he didn’t expect was for the Captain to stagger back, turning white, and gasp out, “ _Bucky?_ ”

The Captain stares at him like a man looking at a ghost, and The Winter Soldier experiences a moment of consternation. It’s been a while since he was last wiped or frozen, and his mind has been slowly gaining independence and coherency, but his memories are still frustratingly few and far between. But Captain America seems to recognize him, seems to know who he is, and that was a variable the Winter Soldier did not plan for. It disturbs him.

“You know me?” he asks the Captain.

“ _Know_ you?” The Captain is still pale and shocked. “Of course I know you, we were like brothers – I thought you were _dead!_ ”

Something bitter and darkly amused rises in the Winter Soldier’s throat, and he has to swallow it down again.

“Probably would have been better if I was,” he says, and glances around. They’re attracting curious looks, which is the last thing the Winter Soldier wants. “Can we take this inside? I don’t want to attract the wrong sort of attention.”

The Captain swallows, and pulls himself together.

“Sure,” he says. “Follow me.” They enter the Stark Tower lobby, and although security gives the Winter Soldier a dubious look, no one tries to stop them. The Captain heads for the elevator, and it’s only once they’re inside and the doors close that he looks back at the Winter Soldier, his expression disbelieving and desperate.

“How are you alive?” he blurts. “What happened to you?”

The Winter Soldier wonders that himself. As far as he knows, he has always been HYDRA’s weapon, until four months ago when he decided he couldn’t go back into the machine and the cold yet again. He doesn’t know how to answer the Captain’s question, and so he says nothing.

The elevator dings as they reach the correct floor, and the doors open onto what appears to be someone’s living space.

“Where are we?” the Winter Soldier asks the Captain.

“This is my floor,” the Captain answers distractedly. He still seems a little dazed. If he’s dazed now, the Winter Soldier doesn’t know how he’s going to take the Winter Soldier’s story. The Winter Soldier had expected HYDRA’s greatest nemesis to be a little more… resilient. “I told Tony I didn’t need an entire floor, but he insisted.” The Captain gives a small laugh, without any genuine amusement. “Just as well, I guess. I wouldn’t want to have to explain this. I have no idea what’s going on.” He looks at the Winter Soldier, and blinks, his eyes focusing suddenly. “If you didn’t know that we knew each other, why did you come to me?”

Maybe not so dazed after all, the Winter Soldier thinks.

“It’s a long story,” he answers. “Mind if I sit?”

“Sure,” the Captain replies, so the Winter Soldier seats himself in one of the opulent armchairs. The Captain sits in another, his expression suggesting that he’s as unfamiliar with such lavish comfort as the Winter Soldier is. Oddly enough, the Winter Soldier finds that reassuring.

“First, do you mind if I ask how you are alive?” the Winter Soldier asks. “The last I heard, you died in action.”

The Captain makes a strange face, one that the Winter Soldier is at a loss to interpret.

“I crashed a plane into some ice,” he responds, after a moment. “Apparently the ice sent me into some kind of frozen hibernation state. Some folks found me a while ago and thawed me out.”

The Winter Soldier is jolted by the unexpected parallel to his own story.

“So you were frozen in ice,” he says slowly, absorbing that. “For seventy years.”

The Captain makes a face again, and gives a self-deprecating smile.

“Woke up to find the world had moved on without me,” he agrees. The smile fades, and he looks at the Winter Soldier with that incredulous desperation again. “But what about you? How–”

“I do not know,” the Winter Soldier interrupts, deciding to be truthful. He holds up a hand when the Captain tries to ask a question, and the man falls silent. “Most of my memory is… inexistent. I was kept as an assassin, you see, a living weapon, and in-between missions they wiped my memories and kept me cryogenically frozen. Four months ago I managed to escape and go on the run, and I have been running ever since.”

The Captain takes it well, although the Winter Soldier sees the way he pales again.

“I thought that you might be able to help me,” the Winter Soldier continues, “as you are their greatest enemy.”

The Captain’s brow furrows.

“Their greatest enemy?” he asks, obviously confused. “But I’ve been frozen for the last seventy years.”

“You fought them seventy years ago,” says the Winter Soldier, and watches the Captain carefully. “The people who had me called themselves HYDRA.”

He has to resist the urge to reach for a weapon, suddenly startled and wary at the sheer rage that crosses the Captain’s face. He knew that the Captain opposed HYDRA – but this rage, thick and visceral –

The Captain takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment. The Winter Soldier vaguely admires how quickly he goes from unbridled emotion to composure. This is a man used to keeping a clear head under all circumstances.

“HYDRA had you?” The Captain’s voice is commendably steady.

“Yes,” the Winter Soldier agrees. “But you have bigger problems.”

“Like what?” the Captain visibly braces himself. The Winter Soldier smiles ironically.

“You’re affiliated with SHIELD, right?”

“Yeah,” the Captain frowns.

“They’ve been infiltrated by HYDRA,” the Winter Soldier informs him. “Right from the beginning. About the only person I can tell you for sure isn’t HYDRA is the guy in charge, Fury, and that’s only because my handlers used to complain about him in my hearing.”

The Captain closes his eyes again, a look of pain crossing his face. After a minute or so he looks up and opens his eyes again. His expression turns hard.

“Right,” he says, then: “JARVIS, did you get all that?”

“I did, sir,” says a voice from the ceiling. The Winter Soldier startles, hand going to his concealed weapon.

“What–”

“That’s JARVIS,” says the Captain. His face is grim. “He’s Stark’s talking – what's it called – computer. He monitors everything in the Tower. If HYDRA’s infiltrated SHIELD, Tony’s going to want to know.”

The Winter Soldier tenses.

“I can’t imagine that he’ll be pleased to have a deadly assassin in his Tower, pal,” he says.

“I’ll vouch for you,” says the Captain, which is awfully trusting for a guy he just met. The Winter Soldier narrows his eyes.

“Oh yeah?” he asks skeptically. “And why’s that?”

The Captain looks him straight in the eye.

“Because you’re James Buchanan Barnes, my best friend,” he says, with equal determination and sincerity.


	3. Winter Soldier and Steve

He has a _name_.

Well, he always knew he had to have a name: everyone comes from somewhere, and even he has to have a history, even if he doesn’t know what it is. But to suddenly have a _name_ – the Winter Soldiers pushes away an unexpected surge of indecipherable emotion.

The thing is, it’s a name he recognizes. He did his homework on Captain America after he escaped, knowing that the man was HYDRA’s greatest opponent. Sergeant James Barnes was Captain America’s best friend from childhood, who fought with him throughout WWII, only to be tragically lost in action near the very end of the war.

The Captain’s conviction suddenly makes sense. He believes himself to be sitting with his staunchest ally, not the Winter Soldier. The Winter Soldier feels a stab of unaccustomed pity, and something like regret.

“I’m not your friend,” he says bluntly. “Maybe we knew each other once, but I don’t know you from Adam. Trusting me is a stupid decision after everything I’ve done.”

The Captain’s expression doesn’t change, much to the Winter Soldier’s annoyance.

“You’re Bucky,” he says stolidly. “That’s all that matters. Besides, you’re here for my help, remember? You don’t want to hurt me.”

The fact that it’s true – the Captain is strangely likeable – only increases the Winter Soldier’s irritation.

“I have taken the liberty of informing Sir that you require his attention,” says the ceiling, right before the elevator dings and the doors open.

“Hey, so JARVIS said you need me,” says the man who exits the elevator. He is immediately identifiable as Tony Stark, even if he is wearing a shirt that says ‘AC/DC’ instead of a suit. “Who’s this, Cap?”

The Captain opens his mouth, and pauses.

“That’s kind of difficult to explain. JARVIS, can you play back everything we’ve said since we arrived?”

“Certainly, sir,” says the ceiling, and proceeds to play back an audio recording of the conversation between the Winter Soldier and the Captain. By the end of it, Tony Stark is gaping.

“Well, fuck me,” he says with feeling. “HYDRA and Bucky Barnes. Uh, JARVIS, you still have that back door into SHIELD’s systems?”

“Of course, sir,” says the ceiling. It sounds vaguely condescending.

“Right. I want you to get in there and do a search. Look for anything that looks like it might be even vaguely related to HYDRA activity. Anything dodgy, any unexplained gaps or places where accounts don’t match up, and I want to know about it.”

“Very well, sir,” says the ceiling, and goes silent. Stark looks back at the Winter Soldier, his eyes bright and shrewd.

“So, Bucky Barnes. What should we call you?”

The Winter Soldier hesitates.

“HYDRA always called me the Winter Soldier,” he says finally. He feels faintly bewildered by the way the situation has gone.

“Catchy,” Stark says. “JARVIS, while you’re at it, see if SHIELD has a file on Winter Soldier here. Okay, Winter Soldier, what do you _want_ to be called?”

Somehow, Stark has cut straight to the heart of the issue.

“I don’t know,” the Winter Soldier admits. “I never had a name before.”

He sees both Stark and the Captain absorb that. A look of pain crosses the Captain’s face, while Stark flashes him an impenetrable look.

“Well, how about for now, we call you Bucky, since Cap’s probably going to be calling you that anyway. You mind being called Bucky?”

The Winter Soldier thinks about it. He feels neither one way nor another about the name. It is simply a word, devoid of meaning.

“Bucky’s fine.” Bucky, he thinks experimentally. As names go, it could be worse. He looks back at Stark and the Captain.

“What now?” he asks.

“Now?” Stark repeats. “Now we wait and see if JARVIS can find any evidence of your claims. If he does…” Stark’s mouth tips downwards at the corners. “Then I think we should bring Fury in on this, if we can trust him. He deserves to know, and we could use him.”

“I agree,” says the Captain.

“In the meantime,” Stark adds, “how about we move this up to the penthouse?” He and the Captain look at the Winter Soldier expectantly, waiting for his response.

“I’m agreeable,” the Winter Soldier says easily.

* * *

Steve has no idea how to react.

Bucky is alive, but an amnesiac mind-wiped assassin, HYDRA is not only alive and well, but inside SHIELD… It’s a lot to take in, and Steve is struggling with it.

He’s thought a thousand times about how much he wished he had Bucky back, but not like this: not as a blank-faced killer who doesn’t know him, doesn’t even remember his own _name._ It’s like a terrible nightmare, but Steve isn’t going to be waking up any time soon. And to think, he’d thought that the future was finally getting to be a little more bearable. He should have known better than to tempt fate.

“You really don’t remember anything?” he asks Bucky, as they walk onto the penthouse floor. Bucky shrugs.

“I have occasional flashes,” he admits. “The occasional image or phantom sensation, but nothing coherent.”

If Bucky were himself Steve would joke about him having swallowed a dictionary, but as it is, he just thinks about how much of a stranger Bucky seems right now.

Bucky takes a seat again, and Steve does the same. Tony wanders over to the bar on the upper level, pours himself a drink out of a bottle that Steve knows for a fact actually contains iced tea, not booze: Tony keeps it there for when he wants to maintain a certain image, but doesn’t actually want to risk compromising himself with alcohol.

“I’m sorry,” Steve finds himself telling Bucky. “I had no idea you were still alive. If I’d known…”

But Bucky shrugs like it’s water under the bridge.

“You thought I was dead,” he says frankly. “You had no way to know HYDRA would get hold of me.”

Steve winces, because the fact that _HYDRA_ apparently found Bucky in the Alps makes it so much worse. If they found him, then Steve should have. He should have insisted that the SSR _look_ , but instead he’d been convinced by Colonel Philips argument that they didn’t have the time or the men to go search for a dead man who could have landed anywhere.

At the same time, though, some small treacherous part of Steve feels glad about it, because if HYDRA hadn’t found him, would Bucky even be here right now? It’s a terrible thought, and Steve knows it, but he can’t help it. He’d lost everything, yet somehow here Bucky is, sitting opposite with an expression of polite attention that’s nothing like the Bucky Steve used to know. It hurts t olook at him, but it's so much better than not having him around at all.

“Hoe long will it take your computer to investigate SHIELD’s systems?” Bucky asks Tony.

“A while,” Tony says, wandering over to them with a tumbler full of tea. “So prepare to get settled in, Barnes. It’s going to be a long night. You can borrow a guest room if you want to get some sleep at some point, but be aware that JARVIS will be monitoring you.”

“Thanks, but no,” Bucky responds. “I’d rather stay awake, however long this takes.”

“Suit yourself,” says Tony. “In that case, we should probably eat. Who feels like pizza?”

“Pizza sounds fine,” says Steve, suddenly remembering how hungry he is. He looks at Bucky, but Bucky just shrugs like he has no particular feelings about pizza, either way. “Where’s Bruce and Pepper?”

“Pepper’s on a business trip, and Bruce was planning to stay in tonight and get in some lab time. Guys, the TV remote is over there, if you want to watch something while we wait. I’m going to go tell the concierge downstairs to order us some food. Nobody kill each other while I’m gone.”


	4. Winter Soldier

Stark is right about it being a long night. They sit and watch TV to pass the time, the Captain looking at him frequently, with a lost, yearning expression that makes the Winter Soldier vaguely uncomfortable even as he feels sorry for the man. After waking up in an entirely new century, he can understand why the Captain is so desperate for something familiar. Unfortunately, despite what he thinks, the Winter Soldier is not that familiar thing. Stark alternates between watching TV and fiddling around with a tablet, before he announces that he’s going to call it a night.

The Winter Soldier feels tired, but he’s used to pushing weariness aside, and he has no intention of rendering himself helpless in sleep in front of these people he doesn’t trust to have his back. They’re not allies yet, and he needs to stay on his guard. The Captain apparently has similar thoughts about leaving the Winter Soldier alone unsupervised, because he doesn’t go to bed either, even though he looks more tired than the Winter Soldier feels.

After a while the Winter Soldier leans back into his chair and closes his eyes. His senses are still on high alert, his ears pricked for any sound of activity, ready to spring into action if he needs to. But his eyes and body are resting, in preparation for whatever is going to come next. His breathing turns deep and even, and he drifts along in a half-doze as the night wears on.

It’s early in the morning when Stark returns, looking rumpled but awake, a cup of coffee in one hand, and announces, “JARVIS has finished his preliminary search. JARVIS, report.”

The computer duly reports on what it has found, and the Winter Soldier watches the growing expressions of bleak horror on the faces of his two companions. By the end of it, both the Captain and Stark are grim-faced.

“I need more coffee, it is too early for this,” Stark says. “Barnes, Spangles, you want a cup?”

Both of them assent, and follow Stark into another room, which turns out to be a kitchen. The stove and oven look like they’ve never been used, smooth and gleaming, but there’s a chip in the marble countertop and coffee-rings on the surface of the kitchen table.

Stark calls Nick Fury after he finishes his coffee, and while suspicious, Fury agrees to come to Stark Tower to discuss “whatever you find so damn urgent.”

The Captain disappears to shower and change, leaving Stark and the Winter Soldier alone.

The Winter Soldier decides, in the interests of full disclosure, that now would be a good time to remove his hoodie. He’s only wearing a t-shirt underneath, leaving his metal arm exposed and visible.

“Wait, is that a cybernetic arm?” Stark peers at it in professional interest. “What happened?”

The Winter Soldier shrugs, and bears Stark’s interest with equanimity.

“No idea.”

“Can you move it for me? I want to see it in action. Flex your arm or something.”

Stark is still examining the arm, commenting approvingly on it, when Fury walks into the room. Fury takes one look at the Winter Soldier ‘s arm and recognizes him instantly.

“You brought the _Winter Soldier_ –” Fury begins, voice heavy with judgement.

“They mind-wiped him, Nick,” Stark interrupts. “He didn’t even know his own name. It’s Bucky Barnes, by the way, and why yes, that _is_ the name of Captain America’s best friend.”

Fury’s jaw clenches as he considers this.

“Is Captain Rogers compromised?”

“Probably,” Stark waves away his concerns, “but you’ve got bigger problems. HYDRA’s infiltrated SHIELD. In fact, it’s pretty accurate to say at this point that HYDRA _is_ SHIELD, just waiting for the right time to pounce.” He turns to the Winter Soldier. “Wait, pounce? Do hydras pounce?”

The Winter Soldier sees the way that Stark has gotten under Fury’s skin, and feels the impulse to grin. He reins it in easily.

“Well, a hydra’s a reptile, ain’t it? So I’d say it strikes, like a snake.”

“Right. Just waiting for the right time to strike,” Stark finishes, turning back to Fury.

Fury is very still as he asks, “And how do you know all this, Stark?” in a voice that has the Winter Soldier tensing.

“Well, Barnes here gave us the heads-up, but I had JARVIS do some digging, and we’ve confirmed everything he’s told us so far,” Stark says seriously. Fury sighs, and seems to sag.

“How deep, Stark?”

“Basically, at this point, there’s no way of telling SHIELD and HYDRA apart,” Stark says. “I’m sorry.”

Fury glares at him, but it seems to be out of reflex. He looks at the Winter Soldier.

“And what’s your game here?” he demands. “Why come here? Why now?”

The Winter Soldier met Fury’s gaze steadily.

“They made a mistake,” he tells Fury matter-of-factly. “They let me go too long without wiping me, and I started to pull myself together. I don’t want to be wiped or put back in storage.”

“Storage?” Fury repeats.

“He was cryogenically frozen, it’s a thing,” Stark calls out from across the room, where he’s pouring a couple of drinks at the bar. “Mind-wiped and frozen after every mission, so he didn’t go off-track. Steve’s downstairs brooding about it.”

As he speaks he crossed the room and handed Fury a glass. Fury knocks it back, and stares at the Winter Soldier.

“So you came to Stark,” he asks.

“Captain America,” the Winter Soldier corrects. “I knew he was HYDRA’s nemesis. I didn’t expect him to know me.” He eyes Stark’s drink. “Do I get one of those?”

“No alcohol for the incredibly deadly super-assassin,” Stark tells him. “I read your file, it’s like looking at a dossier for the Terminator. The last thing I want is you deciding to kill us all in a fit of drunken rage.”

Since the Winter Soldier has no idea how he reacts to the consumption of alcohol, he decides that this is fair. Something to hold a grudge over maybe, but fair. He frowns.

“Bastard,” he tells Stark in Russian. Surprisingly, Fury’s lips twitch.

“I don’t know what you just said, but the same to you,” Stark says severely.

“Who knows what you’ve told me?” Fury interrupts the banter.

“Just you, me, Steve, and Barnes,” Stark tells him. “We weren’t sure who to trust, under the circumstances.”

Fury raises an eyebrow.

“What made you so sure I’m not HYDRA?”

“Alexander Pierce complained about you,” the Winter Soldier explains briefly. Fury goes stiff like he’s been shocked.

“ _What?_ ” he thunders, turning on the Winter Soldier with a face that would make lesser men quake in their boots, but after everything he’s been through, the Winter Soldier is hardly scared by an intimidating face. “I’ve known Pierce for _years_ –”

“He gave me orders personally,” the Winter Soldier says flatly and concisely. “For several different missions. As far as I know, he’s HYDRA’s head guy.”

“The evidence we found seems to indicate he’s telling the truth,” Stark says, apologetically.

Somehow, without moving a muscle, Fury seems to collapse in on himself.

“God- _dammit_ ,” he swears, and goes silent. After a moment he says, “I could use another drink.”

Stark silently fetches the bottle off the bar and pours Fury another drink. Fury drinks it.

“I’ve worked with that man for years,” he says tiredly, and suddenly he seems a lot older than he did two minutes ago. The vibrant, dangerous man is gone, leaving someone worn and battle-weary. “Asked him to take the position on the World Security Council myself.” He shakes his head. “He’s one of the few people in the world I actually _trusted_. God- _damn_.”

Stark pats him awkwardly on the shoulder. To the Winter Soldier’s surprise, Fury looks like he actually appreciates the gesture.

“I know what that’s like,” Stark says quietly. Fury looks at him, and they share a moment of mutual understanding. The Winter Soldier wonders curiously who betrayed Stark, but he doesn’t ask. Men like Fury and Stark guard their secrets fiercely.

“Do you know anyone who’s reliable?” the Winter Soldier asks instead. Fury focuses on him with his one eye, and shakes his head slowly.

“There’s no one I can be sure of. I would have said Pierce was completely trustworthy.” His mouth twists bitterly.

“So, it’s just us,” Stark concludes. “Well, that’s _wizard_.” His sarcasm is obvious.

“But you have the evidence,” the Winter Soldier argues. “It’s all there. If you make it public, HYDRA can’t hide any longer.”

“You’re talking about bringing down all of SHIELD,” Fury says harshly.

“At this point, HYDRA and SHIELD are two sides of the same coin,” says a new voice, and they all look up as the Captain enters the room.

The Winter Soldier has decided that he likes the man. Captain America is honest and principled, and _stubborn_ about his principles, as well as kind. He also seems to be kind of stupid when it comes to his ideals, of course, but the Winter Soldier finds himself oddly indulgent of this glaring personality flaw. Besides, it doesn’t really matter, as long as the Winter Soldier is there to be pragmatic and ensure that the Captain doesn’t do anything too idiotic. He thinks that he could be loyal to this man, if given the chance. The Captain inspires sentiment, even in those who are better off without it. But maybe, after all these years as a ruthless amnesiac killing machine, the Winter Soldier could do with a little sentiment. He could certainly find out more about the man he was.

The Captain sits next to him, almost shoulder-to-shoulder, and the Winter Soldier has a suddenly flash of memory, of the Captain doing the same thing as they sat around a burning campfire. The Winter Soldier blinks in surprise and mild disorientation, and files the memory carefully away. He thinks that he would quite like to recall his friendship with the Captain. It’s annoying that he can’t, and leaves a gnawing sense of absence inside him. He supposes that it’s harder to deal with loss when you know exactly what you’re missing.

Fury looks from the Captain’s implacable face to Stark’s grave one, and his expression slowly shifts to acceptance and resignation.

“Fine.” He sounds pained. “Let’s take down SHIELD.”


	5. Steve

Steve cooks breakfast on his own floor as Fury and Tony argue over who to include in their plans to take down HYDRA. Tony wants to call in the other Avengers on the grounds that they could be a help in the current situation, but Fury is adamant that they can trust no one. So far, neither of them are winning the argument, probably because both of them have a good point.

Since they want to keep Bucky’s presence hidden for as long as possible, they’ve moved their discussion down to Steve’s floor. Bucky can hide out here in relative comfort and security without anyone being the wiser. JARVIS’s already edited the lobby and elevator security footage that has Bucky in it.

Steve rolls his eyes as the argument doesn’t abate. Bucky just sits and eats the bacon and eggs Steve cooked for him. His metal arm glints in the light, and Steve can’t help staring at it and wondering what happened to Bucky’s actual arm. The metal arm is a thing of strange beauty, all sleek, interlocking metal that moves as smoothly as silk, but it doesn’t belong there. The last time Steve saw Bucky he was whole and well: what on earth has he been through since then to end up the way he is?

Bucky calmly finishes his breakfast a little before Steve does, and Steve decides that the argument has gone on long enough.

“Fellas!” he says loudly, and Fury and Tony turn to look at him. “Can’t JARVIS see if there’s anything linking these guys to HYDRA in the SHIELD systems?”

“Good idea,” says Tony, and immediately directs JARVIS to do so.

“The absence of evidence is _not_ the same as an absence of affiliation with HYDRA–” Fury begins.

“But it’s the closest thing you’re going to get, and we need more people in on this,” Steve says firmly. “If they come up clean, who would you want involved?”

Fury hesitates, but says grudgingly, “Romanov, definitely, and Barton. I recruited Hill myself, and I know she has strong opinions about any one person or organization holding too much power without accountability – if that wasn’t a front to make me trust her.”

“JARVIS, can you investigate Agents Romanov, Barton and Hill?” Steve asks.

“Certainly, Mr Rogers,” JARVIS replies. “I am doing so now.”

“So what do we do in the meantime?” Steve asks. “We can’t risk HYDRA catching wind of what we’re doing.”

“I’ll need to return to SHIELD, pretend nothing’s wrong,” Fury says. “Stark, do you have some blueprints or something you can give me as a pretext for this meeting?”

“I hate handing anything over to HYDRA, but sure, I’ll find something,” Tony agrees. “Right now, we need to deal with this.” He taps his tablet and brings up an aerial photograph.

“What are we looking at?” Fury asks.

“Camp Lehigh,” Tony replies, and Steve starts in surprise – Camp Lehigh was where he was trained, during the war. “It’s an abandoned WWII army base. A lot of the HYDRA activity in the SHIELD systems is from this location. We need to send someone in to take a look.”

“That’s the site of the original SHIELD headquarters,” Fury notes, frowning. “That site was abandoned decades ago. There shouldn’t be anything there.”

“Well, _something_ is, and whatever it is, it’s been there a long time,” says Tony.

“I’ll check it out,” Steve volunteers.

“I’ll go with you,” Bucky says immediately, and Steve feels a flutter of warmth in his chest.

“You’re an eager beaver,” Tony comments, giving Bucky a suspicious look.

“He’s going to go charging in there alone and get his stupid ass killed, that’s why,” Bucky retorts calmly. “I can tell.” He has an odd expression on his face, like he’s half-remembering something. “Aren’t you, Captain?”

Steve grins at him, sees Bucky’s face almost twitch into a smile before he regains control of his expression and his face blanks again.

“You sure you don’t remember me?” Steve asks, because Bucky always did complain about Steve doing stupid things.

“I read about you,” Bucky says, looking annoyed. “That’s all. It’s well-documented that you once went off to attack an entire HYDRA base single-handed. Excuse me if I think your methods are crazy.”

“You did read that I decimated that base and freed everyone, right?” Steve asks, unable to help the teasing note in his voice. Bucky glares at him, utterly exasperated, and the expression is so familiar that Steve’s breath catches.

Bucky mutters something in Russian, and Fury snorts.

“Contact me when you know about my agents,” Fury says, standing. “Gentlemen. I’ll bre seeing you. Good luck.” He leaves in a sweep of coat.

“We should head out, if we’re going to investigate, Camp Lehigh,” Steve tells Bucky. “But do you want to shower and change, first? I can lend you some clothes, if you want.”

Bucky just _looks_ at Steve, raising an eyebrow, and makes a point of running his eyes from Steve’s feet up the lines of his body, finally landing on Steve’s face.

“Somehow, I doubt they’re going to fit,” Bucky observes dryly. “Thanks anyway. I will have that shower, though.” He stands and stretches, moving as fluidly as a cat. “Tell me where the bathroom is?”

Steve gives him directions, and Bucky strolls off. His hoodie and gloves and baseball cap are resting on one of the chairs, and Steve sighs, and rubs at his face tiredly.

“This might be kind of a hypocritical question, but did you get any sleep, Steve?” Tony is looking at him in concern.

“I dozed a bit,” Steve says. “Didn’t really sleep, though. Didn’t want to leave Bucky alone. It’s fine. I’ve gone longer than this without sleep before.”

Tony frowns at him.

“Steve, you’re potentially about to walk into a HYDRA base –”

Steve cracks a grin.

“Done that before on less sleep, too,” he says, and Tony huffs.

“Fine. Just… be careful. W have no idea what we’re dealing with here. And watch out for Barnes. I know he’s your friend, but that doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

“I know,” Steve says, even though he can’t quite bring himself to believe it. Intellectually he knows that Tony is absolutely right, but emotionally… well, it’s _Bucky_. What can he do? Bucky’s been at his side, guarding his back since they were kids, and Steve’s trust of him goes down to the bone. It might be stupid, but then how many stupid things has Steve done in his life? Most of them have worked out okay, so Steve just has to hope that this does, too.

When Bucky reappears, the first thing he does is don his hoodie, gloves, and baseball cap again. Steve recognizes the good sense in this, and asks Bucky to give him a moment. He shrugs on a leather jacket and pulls out his Dodgers cap, fitting it onto his head. He slips his handarm into his jacket pocket, and rejoins Bucky in the living room.

They head down to the garage on the basement level. Next to where Tony keeps his cars, there’s a dedicated parking space for Steve’s motorbike.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” says Bucky, giving the motorcycle a dubious look. “Don’t tell me you want me to spoon you on that thing.”

“Put this on,” Steve tells him, tossing Bucky the spare helmet.

Bucky gives Steve a look that says he doesn’t appreciate this at all, but stuffs his baseball cap in his hoodie pocket and puts the helmet on, before sitting behind Steve on the bike.

“I feel like you maybe should have bought me dinner first,” Bucky grumbles, holding Steve tight, and Steve laughs out loud and revs the engine. A moment later, they’re on the move.


	6. Winter Soldier

By the time they arrive at Camp Lehigh the Winter Soldier is glad to be there and off the motorbike. He’s sore and cold from sitting on the back of the bike for so long, and uncomfortable at being pressed up so close against another human being. It feels strangely intimate, and he doesn’t like it.

The base appears to be abandoned, but the Captain is looking around like he’s seeing something else, his expression distant.

“Captain?”

The Captain blinks, and his eyes focus on the Winter Soldier’s face.

“I was trained here, you know,” he says, looking around with an expression of sad nostalgia. “The SSR was stationed here at one point.”

The Winter Soldier says nothing, unsure how to respond to this confidence, but the Captain doesn’t seem to expect a reply. He scans the layout of the base, and frowns, like something is out of place.

“What is it?” the Winter Soldier asks.

“That building shouldn’t be there,” the Captain says, pointing at an ammunition storage shed. He starts walking towards it, and the Winter Soldier follows.

They search the empty shed, and find a set of stairs leading downwards to a long-abandoned office, with a logo on one wall.

“SHIELD?” the Winter Soldier asks. The Captain nods.

“Yeah.” He walks along, scanning the room, and the Winter Soldier does the same. Then the Captain pauses, and shoves aside a bookcase. Behind it is an elevator. The Captain and the Winter Soldier silently exchange glances.

They enter the elevator.

The room they come out in is dark, and the Captain and the Winter Soldier walk out hesitantly, unsure of what lurks in the darkness ahead. The lights come on slowly, and they find themselves standing in a room full of ancient computer equipment. In the centre of the room is a control panel, with several computer screens and an old-fashioned security camera attached. Next to a dusty keyboard is the only new thing in the room: a USB hub, sleek and modern.

 _Initialize system?_ says a block of text on one screen. The Captain looks at the Winter Soldier questioningly, then types, _yes._

The computer screens whir to life without their input, and the security camera shifts to bring them into view. The Winter Soldier feels the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

“Rogers, Steven, born 1918. Code-named Captain America,” says a computerized voice. The Captain looks as uneasy as the Winter Soldier does. “And the Winter Soldier, my greatest creation.”

Both the Winter Soldier and the Captain go tense at the same time.

“Is it a recording?” the Captain asks, frowning.

“I don’t think so.” The Winter Soldier stares at the camera. “Who are you?”

“I am Arnim Zola, HYDRA’s greatest scientist,” says the computerized voice, and it sounds like it’s smiling. “Your creator.”

"But Zola's dead," says the Captain.

"Not quite, Captain," the computerized voice says. "In 1971 I was given a terminal diagnosis. My body could not be saved, but my brain was worth saving. Look around you. You are standing in my brain." 

Something sick suddenly appears in the Captain’s expression. He swallows, and the Winter Soldier has a sudden strong feeling that he’s not going to like what comes next.

“But we captured you,” he says. “The SSR had you in custody. Bucky fell at the same time you were captured. How could…?”

The voice chuckles.

“So naïve, Captain. I was one of only many scientists recruited by the SSR after the war. I was there when it was repurposed into SHIELD.”

The Captain has gone white.

“No,” he says furiously. “You can’t be saying…”

“I created the Winter Soldier under SHIELD’s aegis, Captain,” says Zola, his voice full of smug triumph. “It is my understanding that certain members of HYDRA found your friend, after he fell from the train. He was found frozen, but alive – much like you, I believe. My attempts to replicate the super soldier serum were partially successful. Your friend had an increased healing factor, one which allowed him to survive being frozen. He was damaged, of course – his arm was shattered beyond repair – but that particular problem was solved with the application of computer engineering. After that, all we needed was to institute a programme of appropriate conditioning. It was a lengthy process, but all men break eventually.”

“You _fucker_ ,” someone says, hot and angry. It takes a moment and the look on the Captain’s face for the Winter Soldier to realize that it’s him. The Winter Soldier blinks, unsure what to do with the seething morass of emotion inside him.

“You should be grateful,” Zola says. “After all, you were useless, believed dead; we gave you a purpose–”

The Winter Soldier punches the nearest screen. It dies with a crackle of electricity.

The screen next to it flickers on, and Zola continues his monologue. He tells them how his consciousness was transferred to the databanks around them. He talks of how HYDRA grew and grew, inside the protective camouflage of SHIELD, until it is almost ready to put its plans into action.

“But you cannot be allowed to interfere,” Zola says, and then tells them that there is a missile headed straight for them.

The Captain swears, looking around urgently, and pulls up the vent in the floor. Underneath is a crawl space, barely big enough for two people. The Captain jumps in, pulling the Winter Soldier with him.

They are barely in time: the missile hits a moment later, and they are buried in smoke and rubble. For a moment the Winter Soldier can’t breathe: the air is too thick with dust and smoke. Then the air clears a little, enough for him to cough his lungs back into action. He can feel blood rolling down his forehead where a piece of debris clipped him. He feels vaguely dazed, but already his head is clearing.

The Captain shoulders some of the debris and pushes it away, and peers out into what’s left of the room. Them he turns to the Winter Soldier, his face full of concern.

“You alright, Bucky?”

The Winter Soldier is not alright. He is angry at what has been done to him, _furious_ at the fact that Zola took everything he had, turned him into a weapon, tortured him, and then claimed that he should be _grateful_ for it. He’s so angry he could spit.

He has no training for how to respond to these emotions, however, and so simply accepts the hand up that the Captain offers him.

"I’m going to watch them _burn_ ,” he tells the Captain savagely. The Captain looks like he agrees with the sentiment, but all he says is, “We should get out of here before someone comes looking.”

The motorbike they arrived on, when they find it, is a hunk of burnt and twisted metal. The Captain swears again.

“We’ll have to go on foot,” says the Winter Soldier. “I know how to hot-wire a car, once we get away from here.”

The Captain doesn’t protest the idea, even though the Winter Soldier half-expected him to. But then, the Captain is a soldier, and understands that sometimes distasteful things are a necessity.

They leave the base on foot, as fast as they can, avoiding the main road out. After some distance they find a parked car, and the Winter Soldier hot-wires it.

“So where’d you learn this skill?” the Captain asks.

“Don’t remember,” the Winter Soldier replies, touching two wires together. The engine purrs to life, and the Winter Soldier grins briefly. When he looks back at the Captain, the other man’s expression is wistful.

“I wish you could remember me,” he says.

“So do I, Captain,” the Winter Soldier tells him. “Now come on, get in the car before I leave without you.”

The Captain gets in the car.


	7. Steve

They park the stolen car a couple of blocks from the Tower and walk the rest of the way, taking the elevator up to Steve’s floor. Tony appears within minutes.

“Where the hell have you been?” He sounds angry, but the expression on his face is worried. “What happened? According to the satellite images Lehigh was destroyed – Fury’s still trying to work out who decided to send the missile – and there’s a rumour going around SHIELD that you got yourself kidnapped by the Winter Soldier, so someone must have seen you or something–”

Steve and Bucky look at each other.

“Zola,” says Steve. “He must have got a message out as soon as he saw us enter the bunker.”

“Zola?” Tony repeats.

“Arnim Zola, HYDRA’s lead scientist during the war,” Steve explains shortly. “SHIELD recruited him and stuck his brain into a bunch of computers in a secret bunker at Camp Lehigh.”

Tony opens his mouth, then stops, and closes it. A moment later he opens his mouth again.

“They _what?_ ”

“You heard me,” Steve says, throwing himself into an armchair. “That’s not even the worst of it. Everything that was done to Bucky was done by SHIELD.”

Bucky twitches like he doesn’t appreciate the reminder, while Tony’s expression morphs into one of horror.

“HYDRA’s been part of SHIELD from the very beginning,” Steve adds. He feels angry, disgusted, and utterly wrung-out. He can’t imagine how Bucky must feel.

“Jesus.” Tony looks sick. “My father helped _found_ SHIELD. He and Peggy Carter ran it for years. You’re saying they knowingly invited members of HYDRA into SHIELD?”

Peggy’s name hits Steve like a punch to the chest. He knew that she was a past director of SHIELD already, of course; he’d read the file Fury gave him, back before the trouble with Loki. But the reminder – the realization that she was part of this, however innocently – is painful.

“I guess so,” he says, a little hoarsely. He doesn’t want to think about it.

But thinking of Peggy reminds him of Howard, and what Zola implied down in the secret bunker. Steve doesn’t think Bucky paid much attention – he had the most awful look on his face after what Zola told him – but Zola implied pretty heavily that HYDRA were responsible for the deaths of Howard and his wife. Steve doesn’t know if that’s true, but a horrible question haunts him – if it _is_ true, was Bucky the killer they sent to do the job?

He’s not sure if he should tell Tony. He doesn’t know for certain that HYDRA killed the Starks, although he has to admit that it seems pretty likely. Is it worth devastating Tony over a maybe, over the word of a monster whose words can’t be trusted? Steve doesn’t want to bring it up if it turns out that Howard and his wife genuinely did die in a car accident. Besides, Tony’s clever, and if Steve can put two and two together and come up with Bucky as the Starks’ potential killer, than Tony definitely can. And right now, Bucky’s safety and their plan to take down HYDRA depend on Bucky staying in the Tower and working with them.

That clinches it for Steve: he won’t compromise their ability to bring HYDRA down and Bucky’s safety because of the words of a man like Zola. If Steve finds out that it’s all true, that HYDRA certainly did kill the Starks – well, he’ll tell Tony then. But he’s not risking everything over an unstated implication Steve picked up from a guy Steve wouldn’t trust as far as he could throw him.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks Steve, and Steve pushes away his sense of guilt. He’ll tell Tony eventually, he tells himself. When this is all over.

“No,” Steve replies.

“Didn’t think so. How about him?” Tony jerks his thumb at Bucky, who’s sitting in an armchair and staring into the air in front of him with angry eyes, and the look of a man who isn’t really in the room with them except physically.

“Pretty sure he’s not okay, either,” says Steve. “Zola said some stuff, about creating him… it was bad.”

“He didn’t create me.” They look over to see Bucky glaring. “He _unmade_ me.”

The word _unmade_ hits Steve hard, because that’s exactly what Zola did.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “He did.”

“I was a _person_ ,” Bucky says, “and he turned me into no more than a weapon, and then told me I should be _grateful_.” He spits the last word like a curse.

“Well, fuck him,” Tony says abruptly. “You don’t owe him anything, except maybe a punch in the face. From what I’ve seen so far, everything that makes you _you_ isn’t because of him, it’s in spite of him. So, fuck him, okay?”

Bucky doesn’t look convinced by Tony’s speech, but he does look a little less angry.

“Fuck him,” he echoes in agreement. He lapses back into silence.

“So, okay. Take it from the top,” Tony tells Steve. “Tell me what happened.”

Steve recounts their visit to Camp Lehigh, leaving out the part where Zola implied that HYDRA killed Tony’s parents, but sharing everything else. At the end of it Tony sighs, and rubs a hand over his face.

“So HYDRA’s probably onto us,” he says. “Fuck. Okay, that pushes our timeline forward a bit. Alright. Well, you’ll be glad to know that Romanov, Barton, and Hill are all clean as far as we can tell. I let Fury know earlier. Romanov should be over any minute to pick up some stuff I made for her, and I can brief her on the whole HYDRA mess when she gets here. I just hope to God she’s really on our side, because she could kill us all without breaking a sweat.”

“Not me,” Bucky says. Tony looks at him like he doesn’t appreciate the observation.

Steve breaks into a yawn that takes him by surprise. After staying up all night and then experiencing a brush with death, he’s very tired.

“Am I going to be needed in the next couple of hours?” he asks.

“Probably not,” Tony replies. “Why?”

“I should probably catch up on sleep while I can,” Steve tells him. “After everything that’s happened.”

“Right, sure, take a nap,” Tony says at once. “I’ll have JARVIS notify you if we need you. I assume you’ll want to be woken up once Romanov’s been briefed?”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He turns to Bucky. “Do you need to sleep?”

Bucky’s been through everything that Steve has, and his eyes are ringed by dark circles, but he shakes his head and says, “I slept yesterday.”

Yesterday. Bucky could probably do with a nap himself, if that’s the case, but Steve doesn’t push it. This isn’t _his_ Bucky, the guy he could give advice to, and if Bucky doesn’t want to sleep, Steve can’t make him.

“Right,” Steve says. “Well, if you change your mind, there’s a spare bedroom behind that door.” He points it out, and Bucky’s eyes follow the direction of his pointed finger for a moment before coming back to rest on Steve.

“I slept yesterday,” he repeats, and Steve gives up.

“Okay then,” he tells Bucky and Tony. “Well, I’ll see you in a few hours then, I guess.”

He pads across the room and down the hallway to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him as he enters. He strips off his dusty clothes and briefly considers a shower, but decides he can’t be bothered. A little dirt on the bedsheets won’t kill him. He lies himself down on the mattress, and tries to clear his mind. It’s difficult, considering everything he’s learned in the last twenty-four hours, but the war gave him a lot of practice at catching some sleep whenever he can.

His last thought is a hope that Bucky and Tony get along okay, and that Romanov doesn’t react badly.


	8. Winter Soldier

The Winter Soldier is left alone with Stark.

“So, uh, I’m going to head up to the penthouse,” Stark says awkwardly. “You’ll be okay here by yourself, right?”

The Winter Soldier just nods, so Stark says, “Okay. See you later, Barnes.” He leaves via the elevator.

Barnes. It feels strange, finally having a name. Bucky, the Captain calls him. Barnes, says Stark. He isn’t used to having something to answer to besides ‘you’ or ‘asset,’ but it’s – nice, he thinks inadequately. It’s nice.

There is no one around now, no potential threat to be on guard against. The Winter Soldier won’t make use of the guest bedroom the Captain offered – it’s too easy to be incapacitated while lying down – but the armchair is comfortable, almost as good as a bed, and it’s easier to spring into action from a seated position. The Winter Soldier closes his eyes, and lets his mind slip away into sleep.

* * *

He wakes up as the elevator dings, going from asleep to awake in an instant. Stark steps out of the elevator, already talking to someone.

“…seemed better to keep him out of everyone’s way – I haven’t told Bruce or Pepper yet, but I’ll tell Bruce as soon as he gets back from his little shopping trip – apparently the Science Bro needs tea to function, or something.”

A red-haired woman steps out of the elevator behind Stark, takes one look at the Winter Soldier, and says, “ _Bozhe moi_.” _My God._

The Winter Soldier watches her warily. This new woman moves like someone dangerous, someone he needs to keep an eye on.

“Barnes, meet Agent Romanov. Romanov, meet James Barnes,” says Stark.

The Winter Soldier and Romanov size each other up. Romanov is perfectly still, looking at him with cool appraisal, and he raises his estimation of her threat level a few notches.

“Hi,” says Romanov. “Bucky Barnes, huh?” Her smile is wide and practiced.

“Apparently.” The Winter Soldier doesn’t take his eyes off her. “I’m guessing you’re an assassin too.”

The smile goes away like it was never there.

“Sometimes,” says Romanov. Her expression has blanked, but her eyes are thoughtful. “I’m a lot of things.” She looks him over. “What’s your deal with Rogers – Captain America? According to Stark, you’re sticking pretty close.”

The Winter Soldier hesitates. The time he spends with the Captain, the more familiar the other man seems, tiny flickers of memory coming back to him, but he doesn’t want to share such a private thing with this stranger.

“The Captain’s a good man,” he says instead. “Don’t think I’d mind being his weapon.”

“Oh, wow,” says Stark, looking perturbed, but Romanov’s eyes are full of a cool, infuriating pity.

“Pretty sure that’s not what Rogers wants,” she notes.

“It’s all I know how to be,” the Winter Soldier tells her, testily. He didn’t come here to make _friends_ – he came here so that he could bring HYDRA down, finally stop running. Yes, he likes the Captain, wouldn’t mind fighting for someone who so clearly understands the difference between right and wrong, who could direct him in ways that might actually do some good – but he can’t be the friend the Captain lost. That man is long gone. “HYDRA stripped everything else away.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t put something else back in,” Romanov says matter-of-factly, and she speaks like she understands what she’s talking about.

“Yeah?” the Winter Soldier asks. “That what you did, dollface?”

Romanov’s eyes harden at the word ‘dollface.’ She looks at Stark.

“Is he always an asshole?”

“Not usually to women,” says a sleepy voice, “but it’s been a long day and about seven decades, so that might have changed.” The Captain wanders past, headed for the open doorway that leads to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some sandwiches. You hungry, Buck?”

The Winter Soldier consults his stomach, and realizes that he’s ravenous. He’s learnt to recognize that feeling, to do something about it when he notices, but sometimes he still forgets to check, too focused on his objectives for irrelevant things like hunger or thirst to register on his awareness. He spent too long ignoring his bodily needs for listening to them to come easily now.

“Yeah,” he says. “Thanks,” he adds, belatedly remembering that there’s such a thing as manners.

Somehow, he ends up following the Captain into the kitchen, as the Captain gets out bread and butter and some cold cuts, and puts them out on the kitchen counter. The Captain lays out several pieces of bread on a large cutting board, and the Winter Soldier finds himself automatically stepping forward to help the Captain assemble a large number of sandwiches. It feels easy and familiar.

“Hey, pass me the –”

The Winter Soldier silently passes it to him.

“Thanks.”

Stark and Romanov stare from the doorway.

“That’s kind of creepy,” says Stark, still staring. “Also, how many sandwiches are you two planning on eating?”

“About enough –” the Captain begins.

“To feed a baseball team,” the Winter Soldier finishes absently, and then freezes. He has no idea where those words came from.

He looks at the Captain, who is giving him a wide-eyed look of shock and hope, and suddenly he can’t be here. He stalks to the doorway, pushing past Stark and Romanov, and walks into the empty living room.

“Bucky–” the Captain says, following after him, and the Winter Soldier turns on him, shaken and angry.

“Stay away from me,” he tells the Captain, and heads for the guest bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him.

He realizes that he’s shaking. He’s used to the tiny fragments of memory popping up, but this is the first time one has taken over his mouth. But the words were just _there_ , waiting to be spoken, and he didn’t realize that there was anything odd about finishing the Captain’s sentence until after he did so. From the way the Captain reacted, the words were something he recognized: something Bucky Barnes would say, not the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier sits down on the bed, and wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into, and whether or not he wants to get out of it.

The most frightening thing is the fact that he genuinely doesn’t know.


	9. Steve

Steve is about to go after Bucky, but Romanov puts a hand on his arm.

“Let him be, Captain.” Her face is impassive, but her eyes are sympathetic. “Give him a moment.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. Over the last day or so Bucky’s been mostly blank-faced, but just now he looked shaken, almost frightened. He looked like a guy who didn’t know what had just happened, and Steve aches to reassure him.

At the same time, he can’t help feeling a surge of elated hope. That was _his_ Bucky, he’s sure of it. It’s evidence that maybe his friend is still in there somewhere, the guy Steve used to know, and while he understands that the chances of getting him back are probably slim, Steve can’t help but _hope_.

He takes a deep breath.

“Right,” he says, and then: “I’ll go finish those sandwiches.”

He returns to the kitchen and finishes making the sandwiches. It takes him a while, but when he’s done, he has a couple dozen sandwiches piled on two plates.

“You want to tell us what that was all about?” Tony asks, as Steve takes a seat back in the living room, balancing his plate of sandwiches on one knee as he eats.

Steve swallows a mouthful of food.

“It was a thing Bucky used to say,” he explains. “Used to tell me I was eating about enough to feed a baseball team. There weren’t always enough rations to go around, but when there were, I ate more than the rest of the Commandos put together. Sometimes, when there wasn’t much food, Bucky used to give me some of his.” Steve swallows hard against the lump in his throat. “Said I had more to keep up than the rest of them.”

Steve looks down at his pile of sandwiches.

“It still surprises me sometimes, how much food there is for me to eat.” He glances up again, putting his problems aside for now. Tempting though it is to get caught up in the past and what’s happened to Bucky, he understands his priorities, and knows that they have other things that need to be dealt with before he can think about helping his friend. “So, what’s the plan now?”

“Well,” Tony says, “it looks like our only real option is to go public with everything we’ve found, let other agencies sort out the mess, assuming they aren’t full of HYDRA goons as well. The problem is, while JARVIS can _access_ the database, copying the information from it is another thing. To do that, we need to fly to DC, walk into the SHIELD building, head up to Pierce’s office and physically access the database from there, which requires the authorization of two alpha-level executive members of SHIELD or its governing body. So far, we only have one: Fury.”

“Our best bet is to coerce Pierce,” Romanov says thoughtfully, and turns to Steve. “Captain? How do you feel about taking a member of the World Security Council hostage?”

“Considering that we know he’s HYDRA, I don’t really feel torn-up about it,” Steve replies. “How do we get in?”

“Fury’s scheduled a meeting with me in DC for tomorrow,” Tony says. “He has this unofficial hotmail account, I have an old email address from my time at MIT, we’ve been communicating in secret. Officially, I will be acting in my capacity as a SHIELD consultant, to talk about the development of tech to prevent something like Loki and the aliens happening again. If I just happen to bring Captain America along so that I can show him around modern DC, well, who’s going to complain? Probably Fury’s going to visit Pierce while we’re there, which will give us the opportunity to get the drop on him.”

“I’m in,” says Steve. “Romanov?”

“This is the best way,” Romanov agrees. “Count me in.”

“Okay,” Steve says, “but what about Bucky?”

“He should stay here,” Tony says. Steve is about to protest, and Tony adds quickly, “Steve, he gets sighted anywhere in DC, there’s going to be all kinds of alerts, and there’s no way we can bring him with us to SHIELD. He stays here, no one has to know where he is, he’s relatively safe.”

“What about afterwards?” Steve asks, by no means appeased, even if he knows Tony is right. Tony shrugs.

“We’ll all of us be dealing with the fallout from our decisions here today. Look, HYDRA won’t go down without a fight. This – putting the information out there – that’s just the first step, Cap. It’s going to let us and everyone else identify HYDRA, but we’ll still have to bring them down. Whether we do that alone or with the assistance of various covert agencies depends on whether or not they’re compromised, and exactly how pissed-off they’re going to be about classified information hitting the public sphere. This is going to be a hell of a mess, whatever happens. Probably your pal in there is going to be in the same position we are: trying to take down what’s left of HYDRA, and keep ourselves alive and free.”

There’s a slight sound, and Steve looks around to see Bucky exit the guest room. He still looks a little wild around the eyes, but otherwise, he’s back to looking blank-faced again. Bucky looks at them.

“What’d I miss?” he asks. Steve and the others exchange glances.

“We’re going to DC to force Pierce to help Fury upload the information we’ve got to the internet,” Romanov states. “We need you to stay here.”

Bucky’s face twitches, and he looks at Steve.

“Do you agree with this, Captain?”

Steve can’t tell what Bucky is feeling. Steve nods.

“We can’t bring you with us to SHIELD, and it’s safer for you here,” he tells Bucky. “That okay?”

Bucky looks like he’s fighting some sort of inner battle. Finally he gives a jerky nod.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Captain,” he says, and he sounds so much like Steve’s Bucky that Steve has trouble keeping his expression from crumbling. Steve manages a smile.

“No promises,” he says, “but I’ll try.”

Bucky just gives him an inscrutable look, his eyes uncertain, and Steve still has no idea what’s going on in Bucky’s head.

“Guess I’ll stay here, then,” Bucky says. “But if there’s trouble – well, you know where to find me.”

“I appreciate it,” Steve says sincerely. “You keep out of trouble too, pal.”

Bucky nods, his face solemn.

"Your sandwiches are in the kitchen," Steve adds after a moment, and Bucky heads into the kitchen.


	10. Winter Soldier

The Winter Soldier wakes abruptly in the middle of the night, the nightmare still playing vividly in his head. His human hand is clenched on some of the fabric from his borrowed pyjama shirt, and he releases it, smooths the fabric out again.

He’s shaking, the memory of loss and pain as real as the room around him, and he knows that he won’t be getting any more sleep tonight. It’s a good thing he slept during the day.

It’s not the first time he’s had a nightmare that’s turned out to be something real, but this one was different. Most of the faint memories that have come back to him are of his time with HYDRA, of terminating people, or of being wiped by his handlers, but not this one.

_“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?”_

_“Yeah, and I threw up?”_

_“This isn’t payback, is it?”_

He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the memory, to think of something else. But the memory of the sharp smell of snow is still there, the searing pain in his arm, the look on the Captain’s face as he screamed, “ _Bucky!_ ”

He almost never remembers the Captain. He’s never had a memory with him in it that’s so long or vivid before. Normally the memories are only fragments, making little sense, but this one…

This one was different.

He realises that his thoughts are going around in circles, and breathes deeply, doing his best to clear his mind, to at least put the memory in order if he can’t get rid of it. It’s not a pleasant memory, but he knows that it’s an important one. That doesn’t mean that he wants it.

The Captain has a record player sitting on a table not far away, and the Winter Soldier stands up from his armchair and walks over to it. He knows how to use technology like this, even though he doesn’t remember where or when he learned it, just another mysterious skill in his repertoire. The Captain’s record collection is stored nearby, and the Winter Soldier looks through it. One of the record sleeves features a painted portrait of a man with glasses holding some sort of brass instrument, and the Winter Soldier pulls it out, removing the record from its sleeve. He puts it on, and the record begins to play.

The music is a jaunty swing piece, and like so many things, it feels familiar, without the Winter Soldier knowing why. He sits back in the armchair he vacated earlier, and leans back to listen. The upbeat style of the music is reassuring, and the Winter Soldier finds that the immediacy of his nightmare begins to fade. He closes his eyes.

There’s the faint sound of a door opening, and the Winter Soldier opens his eyes and glances around, to see the Captain standing in the hallway, looking into the living room.

“Not that I mind Glenn Miller, but is there a reason why you’re listening to _American Patrol_ at one in the morning?” the Captain asks. He sounds tired, but his voice is reasonable.

“Couldn’t sleep,” the Winter Soldier explains, only feeling a little sorry to have interrupted the Captain’s own sleep. All the same, he stops the music.

“Nightmares?” the Captain asks understandingly.

“Something like that.” The Winter Soldier stares at the wall in front of him and doesn’t look at the Captain. “I fell off a train, didn’t I?”

The Captain goes quiet and very still.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “I couldn’t get to you in time. You fell before I reached you. We all thought you were dead.”

“I thought so,” says the Winter Soldier. “I mean, my memory’s got more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but… it felt more like a memory than just a regular nightmare.”

“You dreamed about it?” The Captain sounds wrecked.

“Yeah.” The Winter Soldier looks down at his metal arm. He’s never known a time he didn’t have it, but his hands in the nightmare were human and whole. “You were there, reaching out to me.”

“I tried,” says the Captain, sounding anguished, “but it wasn’t enough.”

The Winter Soldier looks up at him.

“Not your fault,” he says, because he remembers the look of grief and agony on the Captain’s face as he fell, the Captain’s outstretched hand too far away. “And anyone else would have been dead. No idea why I wasn’t.”

The Captain hesitates, and the Winter Soldier eyes him.

“You were taken prisoner, during the war,” the Captain says haltingly. “Zola experimented on you. I got you out, but… something he did must have allowed you to survive the fall.”

“And then his goons found me afterwards,” the Winter Soldier says, smiling bitterly. “Guess Lady Luck was against me.”

“How bad was it?” The Captain asks, steeling himself. The Winter Soldier feels a flicker of pity for him. As terrible as it’s been for him, it can’t be easy for the Captain, either, waking up in a new world, finding out that his enemy has grown in power while he was gone, and discovering that his best friend is an entirely different man. It would be easier for the Captain not to know, but he insists on knowing anyway, out of a sense of misplaced loyalty. Vaguely masochistic though it is on the Captain's part, the Winter Soldier finds that he appreciates the gesture.

“Bad,” the Winter Soldier tells him, without really sharing any details. “The processes they used to wipe me and freeze me… I’ve never experienced anything more painful, and they did that to me over and over again. It was torture.”

The Captain’s jaw clenches angrily, but his eyes are pained.

“Who?” he says, and the Winter Soldier almost smiles at the grudge the Captain is bearing on his behalf. It’s touching, but unnecessary.

“The only one I really remember is Pierce. But don’t worry, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”

The Winter Soldier remembers Pierce better than he remembers most things. He knows that Pierce saw nothing wrong with treating the Winter Soldier as nothing more than a tool, to be re-calibrated when necessary. He wants to see the man dead.

“He will,” the Captain promises, and the Winter Soldier shakes his head.

“We’ll see.” He looks back up at the Captain. “You should get some sleep.”

The Captain hesitates, but the Winter Soldier only stares at him, and finally the Captain nods.

“I guess you’re right. Big day tomorrow,” he agrees. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” the Winter Soldier tells him. “And if I’m not, you’ll know it, because I’ll be playing records in your living room.”

The Captain cracks a faint smile.

“Alright, then. Night, Bucky.” He pads back to his bedroom, shutting the door behind him again.

“Night, Steve,” The Winter Soldier says quietly.


	11. Steve

The flight to DC with Tony and Romanov is uneventful. Tony chatters the entire time about various things, and after a while Steve starts tuning him out, Tony’s jabbering a kind of white noise in the background. Every now and then Tony asks him a question, and Steve mentally replays the last few minutes of conversation – his brain records these things whether he’s actively paying attention or not, since the serum – so that he can respond appropriately. After this goes on a while Romanov starts smiling as she watches them, a small, barely-there smile, and Steve guesses that maybe she’s caught on to the fact that Steve isn’t actually listening as intently as he seems to be.

Mostly Steve thinks about what they’re about to do, and about what Bucky told him the night before. That Bucky remembers from the train is simultaneously horrifying and a source of hope – in some ways its terrible that Bucky remembers almost dying, remembers Steve’s failure to save him, but on the other hand… on the other hand, if Bucky can remember that, then other memories might follow. Steve can live with it if Bucky never becomes the man he was; after all, it’s better than Bucky being dead altogether. But he can’t help hoping that he won’t have to, and that Bucky will remember everything he’s missing.

Steve desperately wants his best friend back again, and only time will tell whether that happens through befriending Bucky all over again, or through Bucky’s memory returning. But either way, he’s confident that it will happen. He’s only had Bucky back a couple of days, and already they’ve established a rapport. It’s not the same as it was before, but it’s something, and Steve will take that gladly. Whatever else time has stolen from him, at least he still has a relationship with Bucky.

The Triskelion (the main SHIELD building) is on Theodore Roosevelt Island, in the middle of the Potomac River. Steve and Tony and Romanov take a limousine there. Steve gets quite a few stares as they head into the building: he’s wearing the full Captain America uniform, his shield on his back. Even among SHIELD, it seems he’s enough of a celebrity to turn heads. As they walk into the building Romanov peels away from them, as though leaving to go about her own business.

Tony claps Steve on the shoulder as he leads him to the elevators.

“Are you sure Fury won’t mind me coming along?” Steve asks as he gets into the elevator, playing along with the vague script they worked out earlier. According to Tony, there’s a high chance that every inch of the Triskelion is bugged with both video and audio.

“You’re a national icon, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Tony tells him. “I can show you around DC afterwards. If Fury does object, you can just go chat up his secretary or something.”

“Tony,” Steve frowns. “I’m not doing that. Besides, does he even have a secretary?”

“You’re right, that’s Hill’s job,” Tony chirps, and Steve says, “ _Tony_.”

They get off a few floors later, and Tony leads the way to Fury’s office. Romanov is already there. Fury raises an eyebrow as Tony and Steve enter.

“Stark, you’re actually on time this time,” he notes. “Is there a reason why you brought the Captain?”

“I’m showing him around DC later,” Tony explains.

“Sir,” Steve greets Fury.

“Actually, that works out pretty well,” Fury says. “Before our meeting, Stark, I have something to discuss with Pierce upstairs. He’s always wanted to meet Captain America. Do you mind, Captain?”

“Not at all,” says Steve.

“Stark, we’ll be back soon. Romanov, you’re with me,” Fury says.

“Okay, then, I’ll just–” Tony starts.

“Oh, and Stark, if you touch my computer or go through my desk while I’m gone, I _will_ taze you when I get back,” Fury adds, as he strides from the room. Steve and Romanov follow.

Pierce is in the middle of a meeting when they arrive, but after a few minutes he walks out of the World Security Council conference room to greet them.

“Nick,” he says, smiling. “Agent Romanov. And Captain America, this _is_ an honour.”

“Sir,” Steve says evenly, shaking the proffered hand, even though he’d rather punch Pierce in the face.

“What can I do for you?” Pierce asks them, still smiling.

“I have grave news. SHIELD has been infiltrated,” says Fury,” by the organisation known as HYDRA.”

Pierce looks at him, smile fading.

“Excuse me? You want to repeat that, because I could not possibly have heard right.”

“HYDRA,” says Romanov. “During WWII it was the rogue Nazi science division. After the way it went underground, expanding its aims, and it’s inside SHIELD.”

“You must be joking,” Pierce says, looking between the three of them, and if Steve didn’t know how much of a role in HYDRA Pierce plays, he might even believe it. “HYDRA? HYDRA ended seventy years ago. Captain, I know it must be difficult for you to adjust to the modern world, but seeing ghosts where they are none, that’s not a good sign.”

“Actually, I’ve seen some pretty compelling evidence,” Steve says staunchly.

“We need to access the database,” says Fury. Pierce looks flabbergasted.

“Over some story about HYDRA infiltrating SHIELD? And then what? Have you lost your minds? Absolutely not.”

“Oh, I wasn’t asking,” says Fury, and Romanov pulls out her sidearm and trains it on Pierce as Steve turns and locks the door behind them.

“We know you’re HYDRA,” Steve says, staring Pierce in the face. Pierce is putting on a good show of looking bewildered, but Steve knows better. More than just being a traitor, more than just being HYDRA – this is the man who helped torture Bucky, who used him as a living weapon. That makes this personal.

“And it’s funny you should mention ghosts,” Steve adds. “There seem to be a lot of those around, lately.”

Something in Pierce’s eyes changes.

“Son of a bitch,” Pierce says in realisation. “He went to _you_ , didn’t he? Goddammit!”

For a moment Pierce looks furious: then he relaxes, and smiles wryly.

“Ah, well. I guess that’s my fault for not having him wiped more often–”

Steve punches Pierce in the face.

As Pierce reels backwards, Steve calmly faces down the judgemental stares from Fury and Romanov.

“We need his eye for the retinal scan, Captain,” says Fury.

“Don’t worry, he’s still got the other one,” Steve says. Pierce staggers to his feet, looking thoroughly unamused, his urbane veneer cracking with a slight snarl.

“Get moving,” Fury orders, and they march him into the conference room and over to the big holographic screen on the wall. Pierce goes unwillingly, clearly aware that both Romanov and Steve are ready to act if he resists. The computer scans both Fury and Pierce’s eyes.

“We’re in,” says Fury. “Captain.”

Steve pulls the comm. that Tony gave him off his belt and unfolds it into a small headset, and fits it into his ear.

“We’re in,” he says. “Tony?”

“ _On my way up_ ,” Tony replies, and Pierce looks suddenly wary at the sound of Tony’s name. Steve returns to the locked door, and waits.

“ _I’m here, let me in_ ,” Tony says, and Steve opens the door. Tony immediately breezes through. Steve re-locks the door, and follows him back into the conference room to see Fury fitting on his own collapsible headset.

“Tony Stark,” says Pierce. His voice is almost pleasant, but there’s something ugly beneath it. “You’re throwing your lot in with these people?”

“Why yes, I am,” Tony says, already approaching the keyboard.

“You don’t have to do this,” Pierce says. “HYDRA can offer you–”

“Nothing I want,” Tony cuts Pierce off shortly, as he begins typing, eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. “There we go, let’s let JARVIS join this party, hmm?” He taps at the keyboard.

“Hill,” Fury says into his comm. “What’s our status?”

“ _We’re good, Director,_ ” Hill says over the comm. “ _So far no one’s aware of what’s happening up there._ ”

“Keep me posted,” Fury orders.

Pierce is still trying to work on Tony.

“You’ve done more towards achieving world peace than any other man on the planet,” he tells Tony. “You know better than anyone how far there is still to go. Diplomacy, empty words – these do nothing to stop the wars that tear apart nations every day. Direction action is needed, and you know it. How many times has Iron Man intervened in a conflict? How many times has that conflict ended, not because of ethics or morals or clever arguments, but because you were the guy with the big stick? People are chaotic, warring creatures. The only way to achieve peace is to impose order.”

“Save it,” Tony says, voice terse.

“You know,” Steve says, “We don’t actually need you, so how about you shut up before I shut you up?”

Pierce shuts up, but continues to watch them all.

Whatever it is that Tony’s doing – Steve doesn’t really understand computers yet – it takes a long time. Romanov keeps her gun aimed at Pierce the while time, while Steve watches and Fury received updates from Hill and Tony keeps tapping away at the computer keyboard.

“Stark, what are you doing?” Fury suddenly says sharply.

“Oh, just deleting a few things before I dump the database,” Tony says casually.

“Wait – the _entire_ database?” Romanov says in alarm. “Stark, you can’t–”

“Can, and just did,” Tony says, hitting a key. “Don’t worry, it’s not the full thing – I do have some sense of discretion, need-to-know, etcetera. But we we’re doing this, we need to do it properly.”

“That was not what we agreed on,” Fury says, looking, well, furious.

“It needed to be done,” Tony says, looking up with an unusually serious face. “There’s no way we picked up everything, not with the sheer volume of information available. The more people looking through what we’ve got, the better. Meanwhile, I’ve just posted the list JARVIS compiled of every agent with a definite connection to HYDRA, you should probably do something about them.” Tony glances back at the computer screen. “Oh, look, we’re already trending.”

“We’ll be having a talk about this later,” Fury promises.

“What do we do with this guy?” Steve asks, gesturing at Pierce.

“He can sit in a cell, like everyone else on that list of yours,” Fury says, glaring at Pierce. There’s anger and betrayal and fierce disappointment in that one look. “Hill, are the teams in place?”

“ _Yes sir_ ,” Hill responds.

“Then initiate the arrest of every known HYDRA agent,” Fury commands.

“ _Affirmative_.”

“This isn’t the end,” Pierce says suddenly. “Cut off one head, two more will a–”

Steve dings him with his shield. Pierce collapses like a puppet whose strings have been cut.

“Heard it before,” he says, when the others all look at him. “Also, I’ve kind of been wanting to do that since Bucky told me what Pierce and the others did to him. Now,” he continues, “I believe we have some calls to make, and a mess to clean up.”

* * *

It isn’t bloodless. It isn’t clean. Fire-fights break out all throughout the building as HYDRA double-agents attempt to escape or turn on their SHIELD fellows. But in the end they round up everyone they can, and hope that there aren’t HYDRA agents still out there waiting somewhere. Steve knows that this is only a temporary setback for HYDRA: that some of HYDRA’s people will be out there still, regrouping and rethinking their approach. But at least next time the world will be ready, and so will Steve.

After all the captured HYDRA agents are secured Fury spends a couple of hours in a conference call with the World Security Council, while Hill and the other remaining high-ranking SHIELD agents do their best to restore order.

Steve is taking a quick break when Romanov appears next to him.

“What is it?” he asks, seeing her face.

“Pierce is dead,” she says.

“What?”

“Someone in a SHIELD tactical suit killed him,” she tells Steve, “but it wasn’t a SHIELD agent.”

“Then who was it?” Steve asks. Romanov responds by simply handing him a piece of paper, and Steve looks at it. It’s a still photo taken from a security camera, he guesses, showing a man in a SHIELD uniform, their face hidden by one of the helmets that the strike teams wear. But at the edge of the picture is a glint of metal where the man’s hand should be. Steve swears.

“He followed us here.” Steve wants to kick himself. When did Bucky ever let himself get left behind? “He said he’d stay in Stark Tower – what was he _thinking?_ ”

“Probably that he wanted revenge on Pierce,” Romanov says quietly. When Steve glances at her, her expression is cool, but there’s a certain amount of understanding in her gaze.

“And you don’t blame him,” Steve says, even though to a certain extent he doesn’t blame Bucky either. Romanov shrugs.

“He does have a pretty good reason,” she says. “You should track him down. Before someone else does.”

“Right,” Steve says. “Who else knows about this?”

“Just me, and a handful of guys in security who won’t be saying anything,” says Romanov. “The footage mysteriously wiped right after I printed that shot for you.”

“Thanks,” Steve says.

“Don’t thank me. Just get him out of here,” Romanov replies, already walking away.

“Dammit, Bucky,” Steve mutters under his breath. “You’ve always got to go and try something stupid. And you call _me_ a dumb punk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Man, this chapter was so long! It's a good thousand words longer than the others. I am so tired now. There's one or two chapters left to go, FYI._


	12. Steve and Winter Soldier

There’s a monument to Steve and the Howling Commandos out at Arlington. Steve’s never seen it, but he knows it’s there. Apparently its existence is something kids learn about in school, now, along with how Steve and Bucky died in action doing their best to save the world from the threat of HYDRA. Frankly, it makes Steve feel old.

When he arrives at the monument, there’s someone else already there, sitting in front of the monument and looking up at it. Steve sighs, and walks over.

“You could have at least changed clothes,” he tells Bucky, and throws his jacket at him. “The tactical suit’s kind of obvious.”

Bucky doesn’t look at him, but shrugs on the jacket. It’s a bit too big around the shoulders, but it hides the SHIELD logo at the top of each arm.

“The more time I spend around you, the more I feel like I know you,” Bucky tells Steve, without looking away from the monument. “I feel like I’m chasing after some stranger, picking up his memories and looking through them. I don’t really remember being your friend, but I guess there’s worse things to be.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. Bucky finally looks up at him.

“I imagine they’re looking for me.”

“Actually, the footage of you killing Pierce was mysteriously wiped,” Steve informs him. “So you’re clear on that front. You should thank Agent Romanov.”

There’s a moment of surprised silence from Bucky.

“Huh,” he says eventually.

“You don’t need to run anymore,” Steve tells him. “And I’d really like it if you stayed.” His heart is in his throat, knowing that Bucky accomplished what he came here to do, and that he has no reason to stick around.

“Well,” Bucky says thoughtfully, “someone needs to keep your stupid ass out of trouble, I suppose.”

Steve offers him a hand up, and he takes it.

“Come on, then,” says Bucky. “Let’s find me some clothes that don’t say, ‘hey, I mugged a SHIELD agent,’ and then you can buy me a burger at a diner somewhere, because buddy, I am starving.”

He gives Steve a hesitant grin. Steve returns it.

* * *

It’s a couple of days before Steve gets the chance to sit Tony down and tell him about Howard and his wife.

“Tony, I have something I need to tell you,” Steve says, after taking a deep breath. “It’s about HYDRA, and your parents. I think you should sit down.”

Tony goes still and silent as Steve talks. When Steve is done, Tony asks in a brittle voice, “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“It didn’t seem to be a good time,” Steve says steadily. “But things have calmed down a little, so I thought I’d tell you now.”

“You _thought_ – you just told me my parents were murdered by HYDRA, for trying to do the right thing, probably by the pet assassin living downstairs on your floor!” Tony yells. “You think there’s a good time to tell me that? Get out.”

“Tony –”

“Get _out!_ ” Tony howls, and Steve goes.

He heads back down to his floor, and tells Bucky the whole story.

“Aw, hell, Steve,” Bucky says, and Steve starts in surprise at hearing his own name from Bucky’s lips – up until now, Bucky has only called him ‘Captain.’ “That’s going to be trouble.” He pauses. “I really killed that guy?”

“Yeah,” Steve confirms sadly. “He was a friend, you know. To you as well as me. The two of you used to crack jokes and talk about women. You weren’t close, but you were friends.”

Bucky goes quiet.

“Steve,” he says finally, “I think I’d like to be alone for a while.”

* * *

The Winter Soldier – Bucky, he should probably start thinking of himself as, considering that it’s his name and all – is listening to one of Steve’s records in the living room when the elevator dings, and Stark walks out of the elevator. He looks terrible, years older than the last time the Winter Soldier saw him, as though some horrible burden has settled on him. He looks at the Winter Soldier, and the Winter Soldier freezes at the look in his eyes. He can tell when a man wants to kill him.

“You murdered my parents,” Stark says, without emotion, in contrast to the look in his eyes. “It’s all in HYDRA’s files. They sent you to kill them, and you did.”

There’s a clatter from the hallway, and Steve’s voice says, “ _Tony_ –”

“I let you into my home,” Stark says. “I let you live here. I offered you my protection. And you _orphaned_ me.” He raises his hand, which has a glowing device nestled at the centre of it, and the Winter Soldier knows that if he wants to survive, he should take Stark out now, before Stark strikes first.

Instead, he says simply, “Howard Stark was my friend.”

Stark blinks, like this wasn’t how he expected things to go.

“What?”

“I don’t remember much about him, mostly that he was even flashier than you are – but he was my friend, and I didn’t know it. They took that away from me. But now I know who I am, and I know that I murdered a friend - I don’t even know how many times. It could only have been once, or it could have been a dozen times. I had no idea who I was sent after, what anyone was to me. I would have killed anyone, because that’s what I was for. It was all I knew how to be. But now I know I killed a friend because they made me, and if you don’t think that makes me angry then you don’t know anything at all.” His piece said, the Winter Soldier simply sits and waits, and never takes his eyes from Stark’s.

Stark takes an odd, gasping little breath, and his hand drops. He looks down at it, and seems to realise what he’s almost done. He blanches.

“I didn’t–” he says, stammering, “I wasn’t–”

“Tony,” Steve says, in a calm and gentle voice, “why don’t you sit down?”

Stark sinks into the nearest armchair, his face crumpling and his expression breaking up, and Steve walks over to him, carefully slips off the device wrapped around Stark’s hand. He starts talking to Stark quietly, and Stark gives an honest sob, and it’s like a dam breaking.

The Winter Soldier walks over to the elevator, and steps inside.

“Hey, computer,” he says, once the doors close. “You there?”

“I am always here,” says the elevator ceiling, which is a creepy statement if the Winter Soldier ever heard one, but he puts that reaction aside for later.

“Right,” he says. “Can you tell me where Stark keeps his booze? Because if anyone needs a drink right now, it’s probably him.”

The ceiling hesitates, but after a moment the elevator starts up, and the ceiling gives him directions on where to find Stark’s booze. The Winter Soldier walks out onto the penthouse floor and over to Stark’s bar, where he picks out a reasonable-looking bottle of alcohol, and heads back over to the elevator and down to Steve’s floor. Back on Steve’s floor, Stark is still crying; Steve is patting him on the back a little helplessly. The Winter Soldier heads into the kitchen and grabs a clean glass, and pours out some of the scotch he grabbed. After a moment’s consideration, he gets out a second glass and pours some out for himself, as well.

He walks back out into the living room where Stark is doing his best to compose himself, and silently hands him a glass. Stark wipes his wet face with the hem of his t-shirt, and takes the glass without a word.

“They were shitty parents,” Stark says suddenly. Steve grips his shoulder in support. “But they were my parents. You know?”

“Yeah, pal,” the Winter Soldier says, even though he doesn’t know – he remembers nothing of having parents. “We get it. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” says Stark, and after that, there doesn’t seem to be much to say.


	13. Bucky (Epilogue)

**Epilogue**

It takes Bucky time to adjust to living in Stark Tower. Living with Steve is the easy part: Bucky is relaxed in his presence, some part of him understanding instinctively that Steve isn’t a threat, and the two of them get along just fine. Sometimes Bucky is a bit of an asshole, but Steve just snarks back cheerfully, and it doesn’t seem to affect their growing relationship – Bucky can’t quite call it a friendship, not yet, but they’re getting there – badly in any way.

Sharing the Tower with the others is harder: there’s Stark, who’s a little baffling, and who can’t forget that Bucky killed his parents, even if he isn’t quite holding it against him; there’s Banner, who _seems_ mild-mannered enough, but who apparently turns into an unstoppable, raging monster whenever he gets angry, which leaves Bucky kind of wary; and Ms Potts, who is charming and stern and lovely, and who attracts Bucky’s interest in a way he’s not used to. But Ms Potts is Stark’s girl, even if Bucky remembered how to talk to a woman, so he never tries anything. He thinks about it sometimes, though.

(The last time Steve noticed the way Bucky was looking at Ms Potts, he thwapped Bucky over the head and said, “Don’t even think about it, or Tony really will kill you.” “There’s no harm in looking,” Bucky informed him, with a slight grin.)

After the first week of living with Steve, Steve talked Bucky into going out and helping with the clean-up effort that was still going on across New York. In a fit of madness, Bucky agreed. He joined Steve the next morning, and almost laughed at the sight of Steve wearing a Dodgers cap and a large pair of fake glasses. The news networks had been showing Steve’s face on the TV pretty damn often, and apparently Steve felt he needed a disguise.

“Well, if it ain’t Clark Kent,” Bucky had drawled, and Steve flushed, sending him an annoyed look.

“I got recognised yesterday,” Steve explained. “Romanov said the glasses would help.” He pushed them up his nose self-consciously.

“Well, you certainly look like too much of a square to be Captain America, that’s for sure,” Bucky said, smirking. “And when did you talk to Romanov?”

Steve just shoved Bucky good-naturedly.

“Yesterday. She’s thinking of moving in. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

The clean-up effort _was_ work, but it was surprisingly fulfilling. Bucky wasn’t used to people being friendly, but the people he was working with mostly were. There was one woman who took a shine to him, and insisted on talking to him whenever their paths crossed, and Bucky had no idea what to do about it.

“Used to be me who had trouble talking to women,” Steve said slyly, at the time.

“It still is,” Bucky retorted, because he was there earlier when Steve accidentally dropped a piece of debris on his foot because a pretty girl was flirting with him.

“Maybe, but you’re giving me a run for my money,” Steve replied, unfazed.

They got back to the Tower that evening to find that Romanov had joined the Tower residents, along with a guy named Barton who looked like he was waiting for someone to slam a door in his face. He stared at Bucky’s metal arm like he didn’t know what to make of it.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Bucky had snapped, which made Steve hiss “ _Bucky!_ ” and Romanov say, “Clint, put your eyes back in before Barnes gets testy.”

Barton isn’t so bad, though, Bucky discovers as time passes. He’s a bit of a smartass, which Bucky appreciates, but reliable where it counts. And he tells some great stories of his time with the circus.

As time goes on, more memories come back to Bucky. Being around Steve seems to be some kind of trigger – not for the newer memories, but from the time before he was the Winter Soldier. Some of them are pretty horrible, but most of them are pleasant, and bring on a thrill of nostalgia for times he still doesn’t remember clearly.

It’s the music he remembers best – he can’t name song titles or their performers, but more and more Bucky finds himself whistling old wing numbers he didn’t know he knew.

One day Steve comes home grinning, an old record tucked under one arm, and makes Bucky listen to something called the Strip Polka. Bucky laughs until he almost cries, and insists on learning all the lyrics. Tony’s face when him and Steve start singing it at a Tower communal dinner one night is priceless.

After that, Bucky starts building up a music collection of his own. He starts trawling small independent music stores with Steve, looking for music that might appeal to him. He buys a CD player, much to Steve’s disappointment, and takes great pleasure in listening to modern music on it – mostly to horrify Steve, he’s willing to admit, who spends half his time saying things like ‘ _will you turn that down_ ,’ and ‘ _jeez, you call this music?_ ’ and making appalled faces. The day that Bucky discovers The Clash is hilarious, because Steve stands there and laments the death of decent music, and Tony starts giving Bucky recommendations for music to make Steve cry. ‘Trolling Steve,’ as Tony calls it, becomes Bucky’s new favourite hobby.

Ten months after escaping HYDRA, Bucky realises that he had a life, he has friends, and he has a home. He looks at Steve, where he’s sitting and sketching. He still doesn’t remember most of the life he had before, or much of his previous friendship with Steve: but he remembers enough. Besides, what they have now is built on more than old half-forgotten memories: it’s based on months of living together, of joking around and having each other’s backs.

Bucky isn’t sure exactly how he had the good fortune to end up here, after all the terrible things that happened to him. He isn’t sure he believes in God anymore, after everything he’s been through. But just for a moment, he thanks whatever higher power might be out there that he approached Captain America for help that day. His life isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than what came before.


End file.
